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Kem
Kem was a rankless tavern owner and best friend to Seg-El. He is the adoptive son of Mama Zed and the guardian of the late Ona. When Dru-Zod took over Kandor, he had been conscripted into the Sagitari but quickly moved to join Val-El's Resistance. He was eventually killed by Doomsday as he had stayed behind to detonate bombs in an attempt to trap the creature and help buy all the people on Wegthor a chance to escape. Biography Prelude At some point during Seg-El's youth, he became friends with Kem. They both met Lyta-Zod together, Kem drunk at the time and being dragged home. Season 1 When Seg-El was approached by men seeking payment, Kem set up betting. When one of the men pulled a blaster on Seg, Kem pulled a blaster on him, urging Seg to simply pay them. Having lasted as long as he did, a number of people paid Kem. As Seg left, he told the bar that they had free drinks for the next hour, distressing Kem. The following day, Seg returned to tell Kem of how he was to be promoted to the Science Guild. Their conversation was interrupted when Seg stopped a Sagitari from hurting an old man, causing him to be arrested. Some days following that, Kem provided Seg with a skimmer to get out of Kandor City. Kem later gave proper Kryptonian clothes to Adam Strange, with whom he went to search for Brainiac. After finding a scout, Kem and Adam went to inform Seg, inferring it to mean that Brainiac was already on Krypton. Season 2 "Will To Power" Brainiac takes the form of Kem in Seg-El's mind, happily offering his "friend" a drink. Kem himself however, is with the Sagitari on Wegthor. "Danger Close" When Dev-Em tells Jayna-Zod about the start of the Wegthor rebellion, he explains how he and Kem had been in the same unit and had stumbled upon a settlement. Kem scanned the area but found that it wasn't the rebels but miner families and civilians. However, they received orders for Lyta-Zod to attack the settlement as they could be harboring rebels. Kem watched as Dev had been attacked and knocked out by their squad leader and moved to follow Lyta's order to engage. When Dev came to, he found Kem waiting by his side but didn't need him to tell him what had happened. Kem then went to a contact of his and helped Kem smuggle himself off Wegthor so he could return to Krypton. ]] When the Resistance attacks Zod's convoy, Kem is revealed to be the sole survivor of the Sagitari unit. Gazing at his dead squad leader, Araame asks Kem if he had been a friend of his. Kem tells her that he had in fact hated the guy as he looked down on conscripts like himself. Araame responds that in the end, he had was the only one to survive the battle over even the trained Sagitari, so he must've been doing something right, though Kem only responds that he didn't know that "not dying" was a skill. He is then taken back to the Resistance camp as a prisoner of war. When Adam Strange arrives on Wegthor, he quickly spots Kem and is delighted to see him. Kem, however, is shocked that Adam had survived the explosion that killed Ona. Adam then apologizes for not being able to save her but Kem assures him that he doesn't blame him. He then starts to inform Adam about Seg but Adam quickly overrides Kem, saying that Seg is still alive and on Kandor, much to Kem's delight. Adam then tells Kem that he would find a way to help him. , Araame, and the rest of the task force to proceed to the Space Elevator base station]] Kem offers to help the rebels take the space elevator, as only a bio-scan from a Sagitari would grant them access and not set off an alarm. He, Adam, Araame, and a handful of others head off and enter the station. When Kem tries to pass the bio-reader, there is a glitch that sets off the alarm. Kem quickly brings out a disruptor to short out the scanner and shut the alarm off. However, when the assault team outside is killed by poisoned respirators, Araame is given an order by Jax-Ur to use her new weapon. Being a smart weapon, designed to target all Sagitari on Wegthor including Kem, Adam tries to stop her, but although Araame apologizes to Kem, she moved to activate it anyway. However, it is revealed that the weapon had been disarmed by both Val-El and Nyssa-Vex, leaving Kem unharmed. Before they can regroup, a squad of Sagitari led by Lyta arrives and calls for them to surrender. "A Better Yesterday" Kem is taken prisoner along with the rest of the task force, but Adam moves to try and reason with Lyta-Zod. Kem tries to tell Adam to shut up, but Adam ignores him by trying to remind Lyta that he was Seg's friend, yet Lyta only remembers Adam as the one who wanted to kill her son and give Kandor to Brainiac, much to Kem's exacerbation. As Lyta informs them that they are to go to Val and Jax with surrender terms, he and Adam are kept to insure their cooperation. and Kem, while their Sagitari guard fiddles with Adam's Zeta Beam]] Kem, learning that the Sagitari are retreating from Wegthor, tries to find out more from his guard. The guard, however, only relays that he is under orders to kill them if the deal falls through and/or the hostage is killed. The guard then begins to mess around with Adam's Zeta Beam, only for Kem to watch as the guard is shot dead by Nyssa-Vex. Adam asks Nyssa where she had come from, but Kem does not care about that, only that they are freed. Nyssa tells them to get back to the rebels through the tunnels, and that she cannot go back with them as she was now a traitor on both sides. She then departs back to Krypton to get her son. Kem and Adam start their trek through the tunnels, but discover that the rebels had moved. Kem brings out his scanner to try and find them but detects a mass group of heat signatures in a mine that he knew had been blown in and everyone that had been there had died. Adam suggests that it could be trapped rebels, but he scans deeper and discovers that the signatures belong to a large group of Sagitari lying in ambush, not rebels. He then tells Adam that they must get to Val to warn them. When the rebels find them, Jax asks them how they got away and Kem tells her that Nyssa helped them escape. Jax asks where she was, but Kem insists she forget Nyssa as they have important news for her and the rest of the rebels. He defers to Adam, but he just gives Jax Kem's scanner to show her what they had found. Kem then stands with the rest of the rebels as Jax broadcasted throughout Kandor that Zod was a liar and a deceitful tyrant. He had claimed to pull the Sagitari out of Wegthor but had instead sent rebel prisoners in Sagitari uniforms through the Space Elevator as decoys while his soldiers hid in a mine to ambush them as soon as they released Lyta back to Kandor. Kem then watches as Jax brings Lyta out and slits her throat as punishment for Zod's treachery. "In Zod We Trust" After Jax-Ur executed Lyta, Kem was ready to follow her in her pursuit of the Sagitari that were hiding in the mines. However, Val-El stops them and speaks out against what Jax had done. He argues that her act of barbarism went against everything their rebellion stood for. Many of the rebels, including Kem, stand with Val and have Jax, along with Araame, taken into custody. Val is then contacted by General Zod, and Kem watches as Zod asks for Jax to be turned over to him, lest he kill Kryptonian on Wegthor in retaliation. Kem quickly counsels Val that they have to accept, although Adam Strange argues that Zod wouldn't just let them all go even if they did give up Jax. They later find out that Jax and Araame had escaped their cell and stole several gravity bombs to lay waste to the Space Elevator base station. , Val-El, and Kem confront Jax-Ur]] Kem and Adam go with Val to try and intercept Jax and manage to find her. They shoot and kill Araame, capturing Jax. Val informs her of Zod's ultimatum and that they were going to turn her over. Jax replies that she had already placed the gravity bombs in key locations of the Space Elevator base station and had them wired to a detonator she was carrying. She hands the detonator to Val, telling him that she was done making the hard decisions for him and if it was to be done, he would have to do it himself. Kem quickly tries to remind Val that the plan was for them to take control of the station, not destroy it, but Jax then points out that they wouldn't be able to hold the station for long. The Sagitari that were hiding still hadn't been found and they would eventually try to take it back, so they didn't have the numbers to both hold the station and protect their base of operations. Kem sees Val considering her words and he tries to argue that there are still many people working at the station that did not support Zod, noting that they would die as well if it was destroyed. Val soon contacts General Zod while Kem and Adam restrain Jax. Zod assums that Val had agreed to his demand for Jax, and although he tells Val that the other rebels wouldn't be spared, he says that Val himself would be working for him at the Science Guild. Val angrily calls Zod a delusional tyrant for thinking that he would ever serve him or his "foul" vision. Val then activatse the detonator, igniting the gravity bombs and destroying the bay station to Kem and Adam's shock, as well as Jax's approval. "Zods and Monsters" Kem is chosen by Val-El to lead a mission to defeat the remaining Sagitari on Wegthor, and when Adam Strange asks him if he wants to go on another mission, Kem flips him off, saying "I'm leading the mission". Adam is forced to ask Kem's permission to join, and although Kem comedically draws out making Adam ask out loud, he quickly accepts Adam's participation, explaining that no one else wants to join. When Adam asks why, Kem humorously explains in graphic detail how a victim of radiation poisoning, which one can get from Stellarium deposits where they are going, once excreted his entire skeleton and still survived. Kem says he still remembers the smell, and the horrible screams he made (screaming himself in imitation, scaring Adam), but then impishly tells a horrified Adam to be ready in 20 minutes. Kem moves through the mines, efficiently ordering his team about before pressing on alone with Adam. Adam awkwardly compliments Kem on how far he's come, from running a "not even a good one" bar which he doesn't know "how (Kem) even kept the doors open" to becoming an accomplished fighter. Kem, peeved over the insult to his bar, lies about Adam nearly stepping on a landmine, saying it was a "lesson", before one of his soldiers reports finding the Sagitari. Kem orders a regroup and reconnaissance, but the soldier insists on attacking immediately via surprise due to their numerical disadvantage because apparently reconnaissance would "ruin" that for them, yet Kem repeats his order anyway. Discovering "something", Kem's lieutenant again insists on attacking forthwith, but Kem decides to do further reconnaissance alone. The lieutenant storms off, and Adam tries to dissuade Kem, but Kem is unwilling to change his mind on the basis of not taking a single innocent life, even by accident. He tells Adam to have some faith and orders him to stay put as he moves on. ]] Kem, using his scanner, notices that the biosignatures he sees are "dim". Knowing that Stellarium doesn't typically do that, he surmised that the people he sees are malnourished. Discovering them to be Sagitari, quite docile and dying, he brings them back to his soldiers and feeds them. He delivers them to Val-El, and he congratulates Kem on a job well done. Adam apologizes, and Kem accepts, the two banterings afterward. Personality ]] As Seg's best friend, Kem is seen to have a similar sense of humor as his best mate. He loves Seg like only a brother could and is his voice of reason whenever Seg gets himself into a situation that could create trouble. He also tries to make Seg's newfound guilded status more cheerful by joking that he suspected that Seg would get a guild and a wife Nyssa before lunch. Kem is also seen to have a paternal streak when it comes to his honorary niece and later ward, Ona. Unlike Seg, Kem is easily annoyed by Adam Strange who he dubs the oddest person he's ever met. He doesn't understand Strange's Earth humor or the mannerisms that accompany it. Yet, over time, he and Adam begin to develop a profound respect and trust in each other. While Adam does still annoy Kem at times, he seems to have grown as fond and close to him as Seg has. Trivia *Kem and Seg are like brothers with Kem acting as Seg's voice of reason. *Kem appears to be loosely based off Kem-L, a distance relative of Seyg-El in the comics. *In Will To Power, it's heavily implied that Kem is gay as he tells his battle partner to stop flirting with him. Appearances Season 1 *"Pilot" *"House of El" *"The Rankless Initiative" *"The Word of Rao *"House of Zod" *"Civil Wars" *"Transformation" *"Savage Night" Season 2 *"Will To Power" *"Danger Close" *"A Better Yesterday" *"In Zod We Trust" *"Zods and Monsters" Gallery Promotional images Kem promotional image.png References Category:Kryptonians Category:Rankless Category:Page Stub Category:Heroes Category:Deceased